It was all coming along so swimmingly at this point. With practice, Gogonji found forcing back the memories and drawing only the knowledge and experiences easier and easier. Neither the ancient Scholar nor the Sultana-lusting Roegadyn's thoughts impeded his own anymore when using the Awakener. They were still there, of course, but he had constructed a sort of confinement space within his own mental psyche into which he channeled them and locked them away as soon as his fingers touched that clear casing.
The elder Gegenji child's swordsmanship was improving as well, albeit at the same sluggish-but-noticeable rate of his much more familiar Scholastic abilities. He had opted for finding himself a second-hand training dummy and using that over an opponent that could and most likely would give him beatings in a jealous attempt to stymie his advancement. He was finding the blade more and more comfortable in his hands, though he was still struggling some with translating the combat skills of the ancient Hellsguard into something usable by someone of his own stature. Not to mention that the training dummy was obnoxious to have sitting so close next to his desk, taking up valuable book space.
That was another matter that was becoming troublesome, the proximity required to the Awakener. As he had noted before, his skills while in contact with it still seemed so many leagues further ahead than the minute improvements and fuzzy recollections that he retained afterward. Gogonji often found himself wishing that he could maintain further contact with the Awakener, that he could somehow streamline the device and have it such that he could carry it with him. For, while this did seem an improved method to gather knowledge from the Soul Crystals, the Doman Lalafell's calculating mind couldn't help but consider the potential of having that knowledge ready to be accessed anywhere with the merest flip of a switch.
Already Gogonji had started musing in earnest on this concept. Along with the original blueprints of the Awakener, many more sheets of parchment had found a resting place atop his desk. Upon them were rough designs of a more compact version, from a sort of miniature backpack device to a more fantastical piece that looked no larger than one of the pouches strapped to his arm in his ivory replica of an ancient Scholar's jacket. In the white space, notes were scribbled around sketches of lightning crystals; short messages to himself about how much the wiring and crystal load could be reduced if all Soul Crystals activated within the 80-81 millilmramz range. In fact, if he had multiple devices for multiple Soul Crystals, he could just have them set to only provide the amount of electrical energy needed, which reduced the components needed even further.
Gogonji was taking a break from that at the moment, however. He was currently in the middle of another experiment with the Awakener, and he was already on his fifth bell doing it. The test was both related to his other idea, as well as one somewhat of just personal curiosity: just how long could one remain in contact with an awakened Crystal without suffering some sort of ill effects? What ill effects could there be?
The Soul Crystal he was using for this particular experiment something much more mundane - one he had acquired from the remnants of a fading tribal Miqo'te clan that carried little more than knowledge of fire dances and other ritual displays performed before and after their beastly hunts. It, like the other two, had activated within that same Golden Range - 80.1, in fact - which strengthened his theories on being able to limit the band of provided electrical energy to the 80-81 range. He had actually made some of his more recent notes while under the influence of this new stone, which had led to some amusing identification of a slight reduction in the quality of his handwriting that he was easily able to counteract.
Really, the biggest issue he was finding was keeping himself busy during the time trial. The huge batch of tea that Ezra had brewed for him before he started the experiment was already long gone, ingested and converted into the contents of the bedpan he had acquired for this purpose. A mite unsanitary and barbaric, yes, but he couldn't let his test be foiled by something as simplistic as bodily functions. He was certainly going to dispose of it with the utmost haste once he was done, however. For it was a filthy, embarrassing, crude little hunk of metal.
The rest of the time was mostly wiled away with reading and note-taking, which could easily be done with either one or no hands. The few texts he could find on Magiteknology had been combed over more than once already, and the information gleaned from them was what most likely attributed to the slight improvements to his concept sketches of the mobile Awakener. Actual machinists might still need to make corrections and adjustments before it could actually be made into something workable, but at least it wouldn't be the graffiti-level annotations that had been made on the Awakener's original blueprints.
The chronometer chimed. Five bells exactly, and with no discernible ill effects. Gogonji mused on this, tossing a bound up scroll idly in his hand in a manner not unlike the fire-sticks the Miqo'te tribals performed with. He had taken to the habit just before the fourth bell, doing so between taking notes and turning pages. He had initially been concerned, but when the impulse was as easily quelled and locked away as the memories from within the stone, his worry had subdued greatly.
Now it was more of an additional time waster, and the Lalafell found some minor amusement in trying to toss up the scroll and turn the page of a tome whilst the rolled-up parchment was still airborne. Four successes so far, with several discarded scrolls along the floor attributing to just how many failures had been interspersed betwixt those victories. He was getting better at it, but he'd either need to gather up the escaped scrolls later or acquire more parchment. If only he could summon Ezra to help in the effort, and brew more tea.
Gogonji paused in his one-handed juggling, another scroll tumbling to join the others as it clattered and bounced before rolling to freedom.
Why couldn't he?
Certainly, using Soul Crystals was something one couldn't just do whenever they wanted, or he would've come across some sort of text or treatise mentioning how they interacted with each other or something of the like that would've mentioned the possibility. If the eldest Gegenji child had to guess, it might just be due to the weak link between user and crystal. He could only assume that the connection was normally far too tentative to try to maintain more than one at the same time.
Normally.
With his Awakener, this was no longer a normal situation.
Gogonji's free hand was almost shaking as he scrambled for his original Soul Crystal, waiting quietly on the desk next to both the device and the newer Paladin stone. His fingers traced over the familiar contours as he drew it too himself, holding it tightly in his grasp. Even though artifically attuned as he was to the Firedancer crystal as he was, he could still make out the weakest of connections with the fragment of crystallized Scholastic memory. Seizing upon that feeling, the Lalafell scrambled to hold both crystal and quill in hand as he drew his formula book closer to him with an eager elbow.
The formulae and runes he drew were the same ones he always had, motions that came clearly enough even through the haze of additional knowledge. But bending his aetheric energies into it to call forth the Fairy? That proved to be much more difficult, even with the crystal itself right there as his focus. The text would flare as it always would, and he could feel the aether be drawn to him and start to coalesce into the shape of his diminutive companion, but it would gather into little more than a mote of glowing light before sputtering out.
He tried again, the mote becoming larger before disappearing with an almost audible popping sound. The third and fourth times, one could easily have assumed he was trying to summon a will-o-wisp rather than a Fairy. It was only on the fifth time that the energies started to properly coalesce into Ezra's lithe form.
She looked about, ringing lightly in confusion as she took in her surroundings. She pressed worriedly at the walls of the glimmering orb that encased her, which bent around her fingers like a thin membrane. Yet it would not yield, let her cross the boundary and fully manifest. All that Gogonji could do was stare transfixed at her with focused determination as he sought to force the aetheric energies to bend to his will and permit her full access to his side of the veil.
But it was not to be. With an alarmed chime, Ezra vanished like the motes of light before her, leaving her master alone again in his musty miniature library. And the Lalafell was not in too great of a shape either, almost dropping both quill and Soul Crystal as his body slumped back in his seat and finally broke contact with the Awakener. He felt... drained, weaker than he had ever felt before. And he was including that earlier incident when he had been beaten to a pulp by an irate Highlander at the Gladiator's Guild.
Yet, unlike that incident, he was smiling in spite of his absolute weariness. While he had not successfully managed to summon Ezra fully, Gogonji had come close... so very close. Quite the feat indeed, all things considered, and it was all thanks to the power of his Awakener. And, from that vaulting point, he could not help but silently wonder: what if he had two?
His tired violet eyes flitted over the earlier designs, the concepts for the smaller, more mobile Awakener that lay scattered out before him. His original plan was to drain what little resources he had left into getting a prototype of it made, to test it on its lonesome and see how it compared to its hulking older sibling. But now, now he found himself adding another item to the mental list of things to try should the device prove itself: to use it and the original prototype in conjunction. He was able to subdue the mind and memories of one Awakened crystal, perhaps soon enough he would see if his mind was strong enough to handle two.
~